Search found 46 matches

I've had Page Plus for many years. Couple of tips: 1. If you have an off-contract Verizon phone, you can activate on Page Plus and port your number by calling them at (800) 550-2436. I've always been very satisfied with the service I've received from Page Plus over the phone. Short wait times and ve...

Wow, I didn't expect to spawn such a flood of comments. Thanks for the feedback. Couple of replies: We need to remember that the inflation factor could also be LOWER in 2018, and that favors buying in October. True. It can't be much lower, since it doesn't go negative, but it's possible that it coul...

I'm waiting till November. If you buy now, you're locking in a 1.0% to 1.2% rate for the next 12 months. I'd rather lock in the low rate for 6 months only. You only get that rate for the first 6 months. They quote an annual figure, but you really get half that for 6 months, and then it will adjust ...

I'm waiting till November. If you buy now, you're locking in a 1.0% to 1.2% rate for the next 12 months. I'd rather lock in the low rate for 6 months only. Maybe inflation won't rise this year or next year. But in 5 years if inflation is up to 3%, then I'll start getting that 3% rate five months soo...

If anybody has a link to find the anthem doctors for specific plans, please post. Anthem provider networks for 2014: http://www.anthem.com/wps/portal/ahpfooter?content_path=national/noapplication/f1/s0/t0/pw_e206383.htm I looked for this a week ago and didn't find it. Even called Anthem at that tim...

Only if you take an unsubsidized plan can you contribute to an HSA. I think you meant to say, "only if you take a plan without cost share reduction can you contribute to an HSA." In other words cost sharing plans and HSA plans are mutually exclusive. There is nothing preventing someone fr...

I've thought about this a lot, so I thought I'd contribute... First, it really pays to find an HSA-eligible plan. I'm in the 15% tax bracket, and every $1 of incremental income also reduces my subsidy by about $0.15. So combining my taxes paid with foregone subsidies, my federal marginal tax rate is...

Apparently, to this crowd, it's unheard of to have the same phone for more than a year. That's hilarious. I've had my phone for a year. But it was 2 years old when I bought it. Presumably after it came off contract, somebody traded it in, so it was available on Cowboom (Best Buy's site for used ele...

Yet another vote here for the Nook HD. I had a first-generation Nexus 7 for a while and liked it a lot. Recently replaced it with the Nook HD, which has a better screen and is much faster. And the price is significantly lower than even the first-gen Nexus 7, let alone the second-gen. One recommendat...

I've talked with two more people at Fidelity. The plot thickens... It turns out that IRRs of after-tax money are allowed by my plan, but only for current employees. Once employment terminates, the only possibility is a full distribution of the entire account. This is a limitation imposed by my plan,...

Actually, Alan, I just found a post from Alan S. on the Fairmark forum on this topic in response to a very similar question. Is that you? The post is here: http://fairmark.com/forum/read.php?2,68188 In that post, I see that Alan S. answered: The plan must pro rate basis including the entire balance ...

Thanks for the advice! I'm actually OK with converting the after-tax earnings along with the after-tax contributions. I'm in a low tax bracket this year, so paying tax to convert that $5K in earnings from pre-tax to Roth status is desirable anyway. So my only concern is that the after-tax subaccount...

Need some advice here... I have a 401K from a former employer that contains both pre-tax and after-tax money. For the sake of using round numbers, let's say: $25K pre-tax money (employee and employer contributions and gains) $20K after-tax contributions $5K gains on the after-tax contributions I'd l...

Hobbicolors for Canon printers: http://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_trksid=p5197.m570.l1313&_nkw=hobbicolors&_sacat=See-All-Categories I eventually decided refilling was too much of a hassle, so I got a Brother printer and use cheap generic cartridges from Amazon, like others have ...

Yep, buy Quicken. The software doesn't change much from year to year, though, so rather than paying full price for the 2012 version, I'd buy the 2011 version for $11. Several sellers on eBay have it for around that price. For instance, http://www.ebay.com/itm/Quicken-Premier-2011-BRAND-NEW-/13061503...

Colorado's CollegeInvest 529 program offers an option called the Stable Value Plus fund (http://www.collegeinvest.org/collegeinvest-savings-plans/stable-value-plus-plan/). Annual return net of fees is around 3%, which looks pretty good. And Colorado is one of the few states that offer an unlimited t...

I generally get a lot of value out of reading Grantham's letters, but this latest one (available at http://www.gmo.com/websitecontent/JGLetter_ShortestLetterEver_3Q11.pdf) is a bit of a mishmash. Yes, he included the graph that Fortune picked up on, showing that if the resolution of the most recent ...

It's the ex-dividend date that matters. That's the day the mutual fund (or stock) gets repriced to account for the dividend. If you buy on or after the ex-dividend date, you don't get the dividend, because you paid the lower (ex-dividend) price. A recent example that I was just looking into is the F...

Couple of tips: I like the SanDisk Sansa MP3 players a lot. You can often get refurbished ones on newegg.com or buy.com for not much money. I have an m250 ($15), Clip ($15), and Fuze ($30). For the car (an 11-year-old car without a connection for an MP3 player), I use this gadget: http://www.dealext...

As an example of how much non-regulated tuition has cost the Texas Tomorrow Fund, a family purchasing 120 credit hours for a child's entrance to a public college in 2004 paid a total of $10,000 -- or about $83 per credit hour. Is this right? $10K for 120 credit hours -- four years of tuition? What ...

Pretty great deal at Staples on a Compaq laptop this week. Intel dual-core T4200, 3GB RAM, Vista Home Premium, 15.6" screen. $320 after $30 rebate. Lots of details in this discussion here: http://forums.slickdeals.net/showthread.php?t=1446999 . Doesn't have HDMI output and doesn't have a webcam...

Great way to use miles that you won't use any other way. Local newspaper subscriptions are also an option with some airlines' programs -- usually just an intro offer, for new subscribers only. The $2 subscriptions that they offer you are a sweet deal, too. But yeah, they auto-renew and charge you an...

I just applied for <a href="https://www.citicards.com/cards/wv/cardDetail.do?screenID=927">Citi Platinum American Express</a> to replace my Chase card. 5 ThankYou points for every $1 spent at grocery stores, gas stations, drugstores. 3 ThankYou points on everything else for the first 2 years. No ann...

+1 for MagicJack. I just switched a week ago -- call quality and reliability are great so far. I had an old computer lying around that I now dedicate to MagicJack -- so my "home phone" is really a computer + a cordless phone. I previously had just a cell phone at $40 a month and no home ph...

I'd hazard a guess that Dividend Growth and Dividend Appreciation Index are two of Vanguard's most-misunderstood funds. Consider their yields vs. that of the S&P 500 (SEC yield, which I retrieved from Vanguard's website just a few minutes ago): Dividend Growth: 2.57% Dividend Appreciation Index:...

Something seems fishy. If you had a place to store it, you could buy crude on the spot market for $35 and simultaneously sell a CLZ09 for $45, locking in a 25% gain. I can't imagine it costs anywhere near $10 to store it for a year, and the foregone interest on the money is close to 0%. Yes, exactl...

2) Is it easy to move money in and out electronically- the bankdeals blogspot mentioned something about $10,000 daily limits and 6 transaction limit a month, which seems a bit of a pain. I have an Alliant savings account, and yes, the six-transfer / $10K limit is a bit of a pain. One mitigating fac...

GMO had expected 7 year real returns for REITs at 7% as of Oct 31, they are down about 15% since then. So I'd guess that'd put them at about 9% real, according to GMO's methodology. I use GMO's forecasts as a major input to my investing decisions, too. Let me try to update these numbers based on to...

When a fund company compares the performance of a balanced fund (target-date retirement fund or similar) to a benchmark, do they assume any rebalancing in the benchmark? If not, you would expect many of these funds to underperform their benchmarks this year, right? For instance, Vanguard's target-da...

I'm not an expert, but my wife and I have been accumulating TIPS in our retirement accounts for the past 2-3 weeks, so I'll give my opinion based on somewhat limited experience. The choice between a 2016 maturity and 2028 really depends on your individual needs. We've been investing in the 2026-2028...

Yes, I'm quoting the actual auction issue (4/15/2013) in the secondary market at bloomberg.com. That real yield is now quoted as down to 2.42% real. OK, I give -- why would people pay such a big premium for the actual auction issue, vs. other issues with similar maturities? I searched through old p...

Looking at Fidelity's website (since Vanguard's website doesn't let us see TIPS anymore), I see some oddness in the five-year TIPS yields. April 2013: Bid yield 2.50%, ask yield 2.35% (inflation factor 1.04) This is probably the one you're quoting, right Mel? But then look at the TIPS with the close...

So if you have a 4% nominal and 3% real it might be that you have a 2% inflation expected and a 1% risk premium for unexpected inflation. Right now with the amount of liquidity being pumped into the market the risk premium for UNEXPECTED inflation may be rising dramatically. 3% real return plus 2% ...

Vanguard Dividend Growth is a similar fund that's also worth considering. Expense ratio of 0.38%, yield of 2.06%. Strategy, from Vanguard's website: The fund invests primarily in stocks that tend to offer current dividends. The fund focuses on high-quality companies that have prospects for long-term...

Given its financials exposure, DVY would emphatically not be a quality fund. In his latest quarterly commentary, "The Minsky Meltdown and the Trouble with Quantery," Grantham discusses financials, in the context of a broader discussion about why quant models are imperfect: at long and unpr...

Morningstar posted a blurb on mutual funds bitten by the Bear Stearns collapse: http://news.morningstar.com/articlenet/article.aspx?id=231936 Barrow's Windsor II was the first fund mentioned. As of 12/31, Windsor II owned 6.7% of Bear Stearns' shares, but that only represented 1.4% of fund assets.

Be careful of its ifinancials exposure. Most dividend funds have a lot of financials. Citigroup was a high yielder with a long and good dividend history, as of 6 months ago. Thanks for the caution. From the most recent semiannual report: The fund’s below-average weighting in financials was the main...

OK, just one more comment... "Based on our judgment, Jeremy Grantham's forecast accuracy rate is 27%, which is very poor. . . ." "In summary, Jeremy Grantham has a very poor track record for predicting U.S. stock market behavior. His forecast sample size is very small, as is our confi...

One final post on the topic of quality... Among Vanguard funds, the one that I've found that most closely approximates GMO's definition of quality is Dividend Growth (VDIGX). Vanguard's website has this to say about the fund's strategy: The fund invests primarily in stocks that tend to offer current...

It's not reasonable to take the bet that if in 15 years they have not shown added value because of some special ability to nail down "quality" that it's going to start this year or next year or..... So taking your data, Jensen has underperformed TSM by 1.48% a year since 1992. Over 15 yea...

Interesting discussion. I've followed GMO's recommendations for several years now, so I'll weigh in with a few of my thoughts. Generally, their definition of "high quality" stocks are those with a wide moat, high returns on equity, good growth rates, low or no debt and good free cash flow....